


First Sight

by pokeasleepingsmaug



Series: Feed You the Sky [1]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pokeasleepingsmaug/pseuds/pokeasleepingsmaug
Summary: My response to an "Ivar love at first sight" prompt from Tumblr. Ivar and Kára remember their first meeting.





	First Sight

Ivar is an old man now, his black hair streaked with gray, and the fire in his wife’s hair is dulled but still he cannot resist running his fingers through it every chance he gets. Tonight the fire is burning low in the hearth in their bedroom, casting long, slow-dancing shadows over her bare flesh, and her fingers are tracing a faded pink scar that stretches across the top of his shoulder. “Your first gift to me,” he notes wryly, and is rewarded with a laugh. He pulls her closer and she settles against him.

“I thought you would kill me,” he admits to her. “The instant I saw you, all those years ago, when you burst into my hall screaming like a storm, sunlight and wind all around you and hair bright as fire. I knew you were the only one who could kill me, my only equal in all Midgard.”

“It was my hall,” Kára corrects him.

“Our hall,” Ivar tries, and she rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue. “I thought you must be a Valkyrie, come to carry me to join my father in Odin’s hall. Surely such a glorious creature couldn’t be of Midgard?” He trails a gentle hand from her shoulder down to the tips of her fingers. Once they were strong and straight, throwing an ax mere inches from his head as he sat in her father’s throne, but now they’re bent with age and he knows they ache when the snow flies. He presses a kiss to a swollen knuckle, blue eyes alight as they meet hers. “Did you miss with that ax on purpose, min elskede?”

She snorts. “You know I did. How could I kill you? You were my father’s killer and the usurper of my throne, and I knew it was my fate to die at your hands. I knew before the day was done that you would send me home.” She sighs, almost wistfully. “How I longed for it! I knew death at your hands was the most glorious I could achieve, Ivar the Boneless.”

“And did I give you death?” he prods, already knowing the answer. They talk of days gone by often now, but they are old and the memories are nearly as sweet as their grandchildren’s laughter. 

“Only life,” she tells him softly, hazel eyes roving over the strong planes of his face. “But I felt my death in your eyes because my heart stopped beating when I saw you that first time.”

“That’s because we share two halves of a heart, and mine was beating hard enough for both halves,” Ivar tells her. His fingers are running down her cheek now. “You had a small cut here. I see it so clearly. Your braids were falling out and your anger awoke something in me. For the first time in my life, I felt guilty for defeating an enemy. The only way I could make it up to you was to die by your hand. I wanted nothing more.”

Kára adjusts one of the furs, pulling it up higher. “I think we did both die in those hazel rods. Surely we have been in Valhalla all these years, conquering and feasting?”

“If that was true we would still be young as the day we met. But a lifetime with my little wild woman was better than the embrace of a Valkyrie.” 

Kára scoffs but can’t hide her smile as she snuggles against him, watching the shadows move over his skin.”I shouldn’t have missed with the ax.” Ivar laughs and plants a kiss into her white hair.


End file.
